The practice of cremation has become increasingly popular in the last few decades in many countries. Cremation was introduced in response to the ever-increasing use of land for burial, but also as a more environmentally acceptable alternative to burial showing a lower carbon footprint. Traditional burials require a large amount of resources and produce significant waste that are now known to have significant negative environmental impact. As the practice of cremation grows, a variety of creative options for how and where ashes can be scattered are being introduced in funerary ceremonies. Ashes from a cremation do not represent a health risk. They are composed of dried bone fragments that have been pulverized. They may be kept or released or scattered in a variety of ways and in many locations. It is not uncommon to see ashes scattered in forests, gardens, or onto the ground of a favorite place of the deceased. Many people disperse the ashes of their loved ones into a lake, the sea or other bodies of water.
Diverse urns have been used through time for water burials. To avoid contamination of water with non-degradable objects, water-soluble urns have recently been introduced on the market. Most are made from natural materials such as paper, natural clays, wood, and natural bonding agents. The biodegradable urns, although environmentally friendly by nature, still introduce in the water materials that do not entirely disintegrate, or materials that take many hours to break into pieces small enough that they are not avertedly eaten by marine wildlife. Paper or paper clay, for example, will take more than a few hours to decompose, sometimes days, which may also result in the urn floating or washing ashore. From a chemical viewpoint, biomaterials used may impact the pH of small bodies of water. Images or messages, often printed on the urns with substances such as water-soluble non-toxic paints, may also impact aquatic life. Environmental issues underlying methods of making water-dissolvable urns include 1) the quantity of material used for making the urn; 2) choosing or developing materials that will dissolve leaving little or no trace of waste; 3) materials that have no or little impact on the environment; and 4) choosing a low carbon footprint production process.
For example, current techniques include U.S. Pat. No. 5,774,958 A: It discloses a dissolvable urn for burial of cremated remains in water including a container having a cavity and an opening formed therein; the cavity being capable of holding cremated remains and the opening being capable of allowing cremated remains to be placed into the cavity from the outside. A lid is capable of being fixed to the container to seal the opening therein. The container and the lid comprise a material selected from the group consisting of clay; heat treated sodium bicarbonate, solid sodium chloride, solid calcium chloride and a combination thereof; the container and the lid being dissolvable within several days when immersed in water, and the urn being configured to have a specific gravity less than water so that the urn will initially float when immersed in water and dissolve while floating.”
Encapsulation techniques are currently used for encapsulating ashes into solid objects made of ceramics, composites such as organic polymer matrix, metal, or glass. Another technique refers to mixing ashes with a bonding material, solidifying ashes into solid objects of diverse forms as a remembrance or to use them in a piece of jewelry. However, the final object in these cases is not designed as a sustainable product, nor as a biodegradable or water-dissolvable urn. Examples of existing techniques include patent application U.S. Pat. No. 6,615,463 which claims a method for processing cremation remains, comprising the steps of: creating a residue comprising a cremation remains; calcining the residue such that substantially all organics and carbon are removed from the residue; combining the calcined residue with an additive; and further processing the combined calcined residue and additive to form a solid product that is durable and has a predetermined shape. Patent application US20090077779 describes a memorial object formed of a concrete mix cast in a mould and comprising up to about 50% sand, up to about 25% aggregate, up to about 25% cement, up to about 60% cremation ash of a deceased, and water, wherein the percentage of at least one of sand and aggregate is reduced corresponding to the amount of the cremation ash added.
Finally, man-made reefs are also created to entrap ashes into, for example, blocks of cement or other materials. These are built as ocean-memorial reefs.
Hence, in light of the aforementioned, there is a need for a memorial object and method which, by virtue of its design and components, would be able to provide a more sustainable way of providing such a memorial object.